{"id":77016,"date":"2024-10-07T15:14:21","date_gmt":"2024-10-07T19:14:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/todaysveterinarybusiness.com\/?p=77016"},"modified":"2024-10-07T15:14:21","modified_gmt":"2024-10-07T19:14:21","slug":"mortality-study-100724","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/navc.sitepreview.app\/todaysveterinarybusiness.com\/mortality-study-100724\/","title":{"rendered":"Questionnaire Assesses Short-Term Mortality in Older Dogs"},"content":{"rendered":"

North Carolina State University researchers have developed a questionnaire to help predict short-term mortality in older dogs<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were motivated to develop a frailty phenotype, or set of common characteristics, in part because we think frailty may be altering outcomes for some of the dogs in our clinical trials,\u201d said Dr. Natasha Olby, the distinguished chair in gerontology at NCSU.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Assessing frailty] is an emerging field in dogs, and there is a need for screening tools that can be applied easily,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The researchers developed the canine screening questionnaire from human frailty assessments. They asked pet owners about the five domains of frailty, which included each dog\u2019s overall body condition and appetite, energy level, mobility, muscle condition, and social activity.<\/p>\n

Dogs deemed impaired in three of the five domains were considered frail and twice as likely to die within six months than non-frail dogs.<\/p>\n

The study was conducted in these two phases:<\/p>\n